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(510) 253-0500 Zephyros Press publishes its books in a variety of electronic and print formats Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books, and vice versa TRADEMARKS: Zephyros Press and the Zephyros Press logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Callisto Media Inc and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Zephyros Press is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book ISBN: Print 978-1-62315-714-2 | eBook 978-1-62315-715-9 CONTENTS Introduction How to Use This Book What Does This Book Mean by “Perfect Grammar”? 1.0 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2.0 COMPOSITION 2.1 A Few Words of Advice 2.2 Getting Started 2.2.1 Write for the Correct Audience 2.2.2 Opening Sentences 2.3 Paragraph Structure 2.3.1 Paragraph Topic 2.3.2 Body and Supporting Sentences 2.3.3 Number of Sentences in a Paragraph 2.3.4 Conclusion 2.4 Example Paragraphs 2.5 The Five-Paragraph Essay 2.6 Transitions and Coherence 2.7 Common Essay Mistakes to Avoid 2.8 Editing 3.0 PARTS OF SPEECH DEFINED 4.0 SPELLING AND FORMATTING 4.1 Improve Your Spelling 4.2 Common Spelling Errors 4.2.1 British Spelling versus American Spelling 4.2.2 Homophone Spelling Errors 4.3 Common Spelling Rules 4.3.1 I before E 4.3.2 Adding a Suffix and Dropping the E 4.3.3 Adding Suffixes to Words Ending in Y 4.3.4 Double the Final Consonant When Adding Suffixes 4.4 Affixes 4.4.1 Inflected Endings 4.4.2 Derivational Suffixes 4.4.3 Infixes 4.4.4 Common Prefixes 4.4.5 Common Suffixes 4.5 Contractions 4.5.1 It’s and It’d 4.5.2 Old-Fashioned Contractions 4.5.3 Y’all 4.5.4 Let’s 4.6 Proper Nouns that End in S 4.7 Common Possessive Mistakes to Avoid 4.7.1 Its versus It’s 4.8 Dates 4.8.1 Date Abbreviations 4.8.2 Decades and Years 4.8.3 Time and the Clock 4.8.4 Idiomatic Time Measurements 4.9 Numbers 4.9.1 Partial Numbers 4.9.2 Writing Numbers 4.9.3 Percentages as Numbers 4.9.4 Numbers that Start Sentences 4.9.5 Place Punctuation in Numbers 4.9.6 Saying Numbers as Words 4.9.7 Zero versus Oh 4.9.8 Saying Phone Numbers 4.9.9 Writing Amounts of Money 5.0 SENTENCE STRUCTURE 5.1 Subjects and Predicates 5.2 Subject-Verb Agreement 5.3 Objects 5.4 Clauses 5.5 Subordinators 5.6 Phrases 5.6.1 Noun Phrases 5.6.2 Verb Phrases 5.6.3 Prepositional Phrases 5.6.4 Absolute Phrases 5.7 Complements 6.0 VERBS 6.1 Person 6.2 Number 6.3 Aspect 6.4 Tense 6.4.1 Past Tense 6.4.2 Present Tense 6.4.3 Future Tense 6.5 Mood 6.6 Voice 6.7 Conjugating Verbs 6.7.1 Now 6.7.2 In the Past 6.7.3 Continuous Action 6.8 Action Verbs 6.9 Linking Verbs 6.10 Auxiliary Verbs 6.11 Modal Verbs 6.11.1 Multiple Modals 6.12 Irregular Verb Inflections 6.13 Lay versus Lie 6.14 Gotten 6.15 Brung 6.16 Writing with Consistent Tenses 6.16.1 Choosing Your Tense 6.17 Phrasal Verbs 7.0 DETERMINERS 8.0 NOUNS 8.1 Compound Nouns 8.2 Possessives 8.3 Collective Nouns 8.3.1 Fun Collective Nouns 8.4 Count Nouns and Non-Count Nouns 8.5 Definite and Indefinite Articles with Nouns 8.5.1 An Historic versus A Historic 8.6 Plurals 8.6.1 Plurals of Some Greek and Latin Words 8.6.2 Words Ending in O 8.6.3 Words with No Singular or No Plural 8.6.4 Words that Look Plural But Aren’t 8.6.5 Apostrophes Don’t Make Words Plural 8.6.6 Plurals of Some Compound Nouns 8.6.7 Common Problems with Plurals 8.6.8 Plural of Data 8.7 Proper Nouns 8.8 Definite Article and Proper Nouns 8.8.1 Common Problems with Proper Nouns 8.9 Nouns into Verbs 9.0 ABBREVIATIONS 9.1 Initialisms 9.2 Acronyms 9.3 Shortening and Clipping 9.4 Blends and Portmanteaus 9.5 Pluralizing Acronyms and Initialisms 10.0 PRONOUNS 10.1 Subject Pronouns 10.2 Object Pronouns 10.3 Possessive Adjectives 10.4 Possessive Pronouns 10.5 Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns 10.5.1 Reflexive Pronouns 10.5.2 Intensive Pronouns 10.6 Relative Pronouns 10.7 Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives 10.8 Interrogative Pronouns 10.9 Whom versus Who 10.10 Subject Pronouns versus Object Pronouns in Some Situations 10.11 Pronouns and Indeterminate Gender 10.12 Weather It, Expletive It, and the Dummy Subject 11.0 ADJECTIVES 11.1 Adjective Order 11.2 Comparative and Superlative Adjectives 11.3 Irregular Comparatives and Superlatives 11.4 Proper Adjectives 11.5 Compound Adjectives 11.6 Indefinite Adjectives 12.0 ADVERBS 12.1 Conjunctive Adverbs 12.2 Sentence Adverbs 13.0 PREPOSITIONS 13.1 Common Prepositions 14.0 CONJUNCTIONS 14.1 Coordinating Conjunctions 14.2 Correlative Conjunctions 14.3 Subordinating Conjunctions 15.0 INTERJECTIONS 15.1 Common Interjections 16.0 PUNCTUATION 16.1 Period 16.2 Comma 16.2.1 Commas and Independent Clauses 16.2.2 Commas and Introductory Clauses 16.2.3 Commas and Interjections 16.2.4 Commas and Vocative Uses 16.2.5 Commas and Nonessential Ideas 16.2.6 Commas and Essential Ideas 16.2.7 Commas and Series 16.2.8 Commas and Adjectives 16.2.9 Commas and Descriptions 16.2.10 Commas that Set Off Names and Dates 16.2.11 Commas and Dialog 16.2.12 Common Mistakes with Commas 16.3 Question Mark 16.4 Exclamation Mark 16.5 Colon 16.6 Semicolon 16.7 Hyphen 16.8 Dash 16.8.1 En Dash 16.8.2 Em Dash 16.9 Apostrophe 16.10 Quotation Marks 16.11 Parentheses and Brackets 17.0 MORE USAGE AND STYLE 17.1 Avoiding Adverbs 17.2 Bored Of versus Bored By versus Bored With 17.3 Can versus May 17.4 Capital Letters 17.5 Clichés 17.20 Wordiness A common writing weakness is wordiness, even among professionals and educated writers For students, flabby writing (as it’s often called) means padding the word count or page count to reach a goal For business people, wordiness might disguise the fact that they don’t really know what they’re talking about, or, as the saying goes, it might be that it’s just easier to write long than it is to write short You can clean wordiness out of your writing with a little effort Avoid repeating ideas Did you just explain the mission statement of your company in the first paragraph? Then perhaps it doesn’t need to be restated Avoid trying to sound too formal This is sometimes called “cop-speak,” because it’s how a police officer might write when making a formal report ■ Bad: The suspect was seen at the time entering the aforementioned premises adjacent to the location in which the suspect had dropped what appeared to be his leather wallet for holding money ■ Better: The suspect entered the building near where he dropped his wallet Avoid saying too much If it’s not relevant, leave it out In this example, neither the make of the truck nor the make of the headphones is relevant to the story ■ Bad: He climbed into the Ford truck and put his Beats by Dre headphones on the seat ■ Better: He climbed into the truck and put his headphones on the seat Remove or replace business jargon or crutch phrases These are phrases that come easily to us yet are far longer than they need to be Some to look for: Avoid at the present time by way of Use Instead now via, by each and every each or every for the purpose of for, so, to in the event that if of the opinion that think still remains remains the reason is because because until such time as until Don’t tell the reader what you’re doing This is sometimes called “throat clearing,” where the writer prefaces the true content of the writing with statements about what they’re going to say ■ Original: In the paragraphs below, this report will outline the strategies for defeating West Side High School ■ Better: Here are five strategies for defeating West Side High School Edit your work Everybody must edit their work, even if someone else is also going to edit it afterward Take a short break and come back to it fresh Start at the top and try to treat it as if a friend wrote it Don’t read it just to bask in your genius Edit it with the intention of cleaning, trimming, and tightening Be firm with yourself (see section 2.8, Editing) 17.21 Y’all, You Guys, and Genderless Guy English uses the same pronoun for both the second-person singular and the second-person plural: you (see section 10.0, Pronouns) Over the centuries, English speakers seem to have agreed this is confusing, as several new secondperson plural pronouns have appeared Y’all, a shortening of you all, is widely used throughout the American South, even in formal situations See more in section 4.5.3 ■ Y’all want to come up on the porch and sit a while? ■ I think y’all need to park the car in another lot You guys is widely used throughout the American Northeast, Midwest, and West, and is quasi-informal ■ Hey, you guys, welcome to the latest episode of my podcast ■ You guys should check out this six-wheeled space vehicle! Both y’all and you guys are acceptable in common usage but should be avoided in formal writing Some people complain that the guy in you guys is masculine, and therefore shouldn’t be used for groups of people that include women However, usage over the last several decades has shown that most female speakers would have no problem with you guys being used by a woman to refer to a group that contains only women In fact, if you watch makeup tutorials on YouTube, which are made almost exclusively by women for women, you guys is very often used to refer to the female audience Note that guys is genderless only when you’re talking to people and referring to them with that pronoun Guys is not genderless in other situations ■ Wrong (about a group of women): All these guys were crowding the makeup counter ■ Wrong (about a group of men and women): Some guys climbed up to the roof ■ Right (talking to a group of women): Hey, guys, do you like my skirt? ■ Right (talking to a group of men and women): You know what, guys? You’re invited to my party! GLOSSARY abbreviation: A shortened form of a word or phrase acronym: A type of abbreviation usually formed from the first letters of each word in a phrase Sometimes it is made from the first letters of syllables In strict linguistic usage, an acronym can be pronounced as a word, whereas an initialism cannot affix: A linguistic element added to the beginning, middle, or end of roots or words to create new words with new meanings agreement: The matching of parts of speech in the same clause or sentence in terms of case, gender, number, or person apostrophe: A punctuation mark that signals possession or indicates that letters have been left out It is sometimes used to indicate plural numbers or acronyms clause: A set of words that includes a subject and predicate and conveys meaning An independent clause could stand alone as a sentence; a dependent clause cannot cliché: An expression or idea that is overused to the point of being nearly meaningless compound: Two or more words that operate together as one part of speech and with one meaning Open compounds have a space between their words Closed compounds do not have spaces between their words conjugate: To change a base verb into its various forms needed to match voice, person, tense, and number consonant: A basic sound of language formed by the obstructed flow of air through the mouth, such as by the tongue or teeth Some consonants include sounds made by the vocal cords; some do not contraction: A kind of abbreviation in which two or more words are shortened into one by removing letters coordinate adjective: An adjective that has the same strength or importance as another adjective used to describe the same noun copula: A verb that links other words, especially forms of to be, and especially one that links the subject to the complement dialect: A form of language that differs from formal language in consistent ways, and belongs to a cohesive group that shares a region, ethnicity, or social class direct object: A noun or noun phrase that is acted upon by a verb grammar: 1 In linguistic usage, the system of how a language works, including structure and word formation, and sometimes sound and meaning In common usage, the rules and customs related to a language (including pragmatics and style) that signal whether it conforms to what is generally understood to be good practice homophone: A word that has the same pronunciation as another word but a different meaning or spelling hypercorrection: A language mistake motivated by an attempt to sound educated or important and based on an incorrect understanding of language rules idiom: An expression, saying, or turn of phrase that is not necessarily understandable by breaking it down into its component parts, due to the addition of new connotations and meanings over time idiomatic: Natural to a native speaker indirect object: A noun or noun phrase affected or acted upon by the verb and the direct object infix: An affix that is inserted into the middle of words initialism: A type of abbreviated word usually formed from the first letters of each word in a phrase In strict linguistic usage, an initialism is said as a series of letters, whereas an acronym is pronounced as a word morphological: Related to the forms and formation of words participle: A word operating as an adjective that has been formed from a verb phrase: A group of words that contains a cohesive meaning but cannot operate as a clause or sentence plural: More than one predicate: The part of the sentence that contains the verb being performed by the subject prefix: An affix added to the beginning of a word or root prose: Written or spoken language not conforming to any special meter register: The degree to which speech or text is formal and informal, or signals the speaker’s membership in a social class, profession, or other cohesive group root: A word or smaller language component that contains meaning and can be used as a base to make other words singular: Just one Not plural style: The form and appearance of written language, or a combination of register and usage that matches a certain context suffix: An affix added to the end of a word or root tone: The overall feeling of emotion, including positivity versus negativity, seriousness versus humorousness, politeness versus rudeness, and more usage: The standard way in which language is used, which may be different from what is considered most sophisticated or most formal vowel: A basic sound of language made by the mostly unobstructed flow of air through the vocal cords and the mouth FURTHER READING Dictionaries Above all, you should have access to at least one good dictionary Two would be ideal, as each dictionary has its own strengths For American users, I recommend the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which has very good etymologies and usage notes, and any Merriam-Webster dictionary, especially Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which is great for college students in particular Be sure it’s “Merriam-Webster,” and not just “Webster,” as the name “Webster” alone is no longer trademarked and can be used by anyone who makes a dictionary ■ American Heritage: ahdictionary.com ■ Merriam-Webster: merriam-webster.com For users in the rest of the world, I recommend dictionaries by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, or Collins Each of these British publishers has a very strong line of learner’s dictionaries, which are written with solid sample sentences, good explanations of grammatical issues, and simple defining vocabulary ■ Oxford Dictionaries online does not include the famed Oxford English Dictionary, but it is still quite good: oxforddictionaries.com ■ Cambridge English Dictionary and Thesaurus combines three dictionaries: dictionary.cambridge.org ■ Collins: collinsdictionary.com Usage and Style Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) 2010 University of Chicago Press US Comprehensive and authoritative Garner, Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage (3rd edition) Oxford University Press 2009 US Garner’s work is superb, but conservative The April 2016 edition of the book has been renamed Garner’s Modern English Usage Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage Merriam-Webster 1994 US Despite its age, this usage manual is held in high regard because it does away with the false rules, invented bugaboos, and elitist shaming that plague so many other usage guides It’s a very good balance and complement to Garner (previous) New Oxford Style Manual Oxford University Press 2012 UK Includes the title formerly known as New Hart’s Rules, with the addition of the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors Thorough and no-nonsense Purdue OWL owl.english.purdue.edu/owl US This is a comprehensive and completely free website with excellent advice and help for writers at all levels Swan, Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage (3rd edition) Oxford University Press 2005 UK A particularly good choice for those learning English Other Shapiro, Fred The Yale Book of Quotations Yale University Press 2006 This book is on its way to supplanting all other English-language books of quotations due almost entirely to the thorough job Shapiro has done in finding the first and most popularizing uses of well-known sayings ABOUT THE AUTHOR Grant Barrett is an American lexicographer and dictionary editor specializing in slang and new words who has helped edit dozens of dictionaries He is co-host and co-producer of the public radio show A Way with Words (waywordradio.org) and author of The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (2006) and The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang (2003) He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and son Visit his personal site at grantbarrett.com Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Contents Page Introduction How to Use This Book What Does This Book Mean by “Perfect Grammar”? 1.0 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2.0 COMPOSITION 2.1 A Few Words of Advice 2.2 Getting Started 2.2.1 Write for the Correct Audience 2.2.2 Opening Sentences 2.3 Paragraph Structure 2.3.1 Paragraph Topic 2.3.2 Body and Supporting Sentences 2.3.3 Number of Sentences in a Paragraph 2.3.4 Conclusion 2.4 Example Paragraphs 2.5 The Five-Paragraph Essay 2.6 Transitions and Coherence 2.7 Common Essay Mistakes to Avoid 2.8 Editing 3.0 PARTS OF SPEECH DEFINED 4.0 SPELLING AND FORMATTING 4.1 Improve Your Spelling 4.2 Common Spelling Errors 4.2.1 British Spelling versus American Spelling 4.2.2 Homophone Spelling Errors 4.3 Common Spelling Rules 4.3.1 I before E 4.3.2 Adding a Suffix and Dropping the E 4.3.3 Adding Suffixes to Words Ending in Y 4.3.4 Double the Final Consonant When Adding Suffixes 4.4 Affixes 4.4.1 Inflected Endings 4.4.2 Derivational Suffixes 4.4.3 Infixes 4.4.4 Common Prefixes 4.4.5 Common Suffixes 4.5 Contractions 4.5.1 It’s and It’d 4.5.2 Old-Fashioned Contractions 4.5.3 Y’all 4.5.4 Let’s 4.6 Proper Nouns that End in S 4.7 Common Possessive Mistakes to Avoid 4.7.1 Its versus It’s 4.8 Dates 4.8.1 Date Abbreviations 4.8.2 Decades and Years 4.8.3 Time and the Clock 4.8.4 Idiomatic Time Measurements 4.9 Numbers 4.9.1 Partial Numbers 4.9.2 Writing Numbers 4.9.3 Percentages as Numbers 4.9.4 Numbers that Start Sentences 4.9.5 Place Punctuation in Numbers 4.9.6 Saying Numbers as Words 4.9.7 Zero versus Oh 4.9.8 Saying Phone Numbers 4.9.9 Writing Amounts of Money 5.0 SENTENCE STRUCTURE 5.1 Subjects and Predicates 5.2 Subject-Verb Agreement 5.3 Objects 5.4 Clauses 5.5 Subordinators 5.6 Phrases 5.6.1 Noun Phrases 5.6.2 Verb Phrases 5.6.3 Prepositional Phrases 5.6.4 Absolute Phrases 5.7 Complements 6.0 VERBS 6.1 Person 6.2 Number 6.3 Aspect 6.4 Tense 6.4.1 Past Tense 6.4.2 Present Tense 6.4.3 Future Tense 6.5 Mood 6.6 Voice 6.7 Conjugating Verbs 6.7.1 Now 6.7.2 In the Past 6.7.3 Continuous Action 6.8 Action Verbs 6.9 Linking Verbs 6.10 Auxiliary Verbs 6.11 Modal Verbs 6.11.1 Multiple Modals 6.12 Irregular Verb Inflections 6.13 Lay versus Lie 6.14 Gotten 6.15 Brung 6.16 Writing with Consistent Tenses 6.16.1 Choosing Your Tense 6.17 Phrasal Verbs 7.0 DETERMINERS 8.0 NOUNS 8.1 Compound Nouns 8.2 Possessives 8.3 Collective Nouns 8.3.1 Fun Collective Nouns 8.4 Count Nouns and Non-Count Nouns 8.5 Definite and Indefinite Articles with Nouns 8.5.1 An Historic versus A Historic 8.6 Plurals 8.6.1 Plurals of Some Greek and Latin Words 8.6.2 Words Ending in O 8.6.3 Words with No Singular or No Plural 8.6.4 Words that Look Plural But Aren’t 8.6.5 Apostrophes Don’t Make Words Plural 8.6.6 Plurals of Some Compound Nouns 8.6.7 Common Problems with Plurals 8.6.8 Plural of Data 8.7 Proper Nouns 8.8 Definite Article and Proper Nouns 8.8.1 Common Problems with Proper Nouns 8.9 Nouns into Verbs 9.0 ABBREVIATIONS 9.1 Initialisms 9.2 Acronyms 9.3 Shortening and Clipping 9.4 Blends and Portmanteaus 9.5 Pluralizing Acronyms and Initialisms 10.0 PRONOUNS 10.1 Subject Pronouns 10.2 Object Pronouns 10.3 Possessive Adjectives 10.4 Possessive Pronouns 10.5 Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns 10.5.1 Reflexive Pronouns 10.5.2 Intensive Pronouns 10.6 Relative Pronouns 10.7 Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives 10.8 Interrogative Pronouns 10.9 Whom versus Who 10.10 Subject Pronouns versus Object Pronouns in Some Situations 10.11 Pronouns and Indeterminate Gender 10.12 Weather It, Expletive It, and the Dummy Subject 11.0 ADJECTIVES 11.1 Adjective Order 11.2 Comparative and Superlative Adjectives 11.3 Irregular Comparatives and Superlatives 11.4 Proper Adjectives 11.5 Compound Adjectives 11.6 Indefinite Adjectives 12.0 ADVERBS 12.1 Conjunctive Adverbs 12.2 Sentence Adverbs 13.0 PREPOSITIONS 13.1 Common Prepositions 14.0 CONJUNCTIONS 14.1 Coordinating Conjunctions 14.2 Correlative Conjunctions 14.3 Subordinating Conjunctions 15.0 INTERJECTIONS 15.1 Common Interjections 16.0 PUNCTUATION 16.1 Period 16.2 Comma 16.2.1 Commas and Independent Clauses 16.2.2 Commas and Introductory Clauses 16.2.3 Commas and Interjections 16.2.4 Commas and Vocative Uses 16.2.5 Commas and Nonessential Ideas 16.2.6 Commas and Essential Ideas 16.2.7 Commas and Series 16.2.8 Commas and Adjectives 16.2.9 Commas and Descriptions 16.2.10 Commas that Set Off Names and Dates 16.2.11 Commas and Dialog 16.2.12 Common Mistakes with Commas 16.3 Question Mark 16.4 Exclamation Mark 16.5 Colon 16.6 Semicolon 16.7 Hyphen 16.8 Dash 16.8.1 En Dash 16.8.2 Em Dash 16.9 Apostrophe 16.10 Quotation Marks 16.11 Parentheses and Brackets 17.0 MORE USAGE AND STYLE 17.1 Avoiding Adverbs 17.2 Bored Of versus Bored By versus Bored With 17.3 Can versus May 17.4 Capital Letters 17.5 Clichés 17.6 Conjunctions at the Beginning of a Sentence 17.7 Dangling Modifiers 17.8 Double Negatives 17.9 Funner and Funnest 17.10 Go Missing 17.11 Misplaced Modifiers 17.12 On Accident versus By Accident 17.13 Or and Nor 17.14 Repetition 17.15 Shall versus Will 17.16 Spaces after a Period 17.17 That versus Which 17.18 There Is versus There Are 17.19 Well versus Good 17.20 Wordiness 17.21 Y’all, You Guys, and Genderless Guy Glossary Further Reading About the Author ... lists and charts, and a glossary explaining some of the specialized language of grammar and linguistics WHAT DOES THIS BOOK MEAN BY ? ?PERFECT GRAMMAR? ??? Although this book features the word grammar in the title, it also pays a lot of... that perfection is subjective Try for perfect communication, but give yourself a break if you’re not there yet I encourage you to think about the contents not as ? ?grammar rules” but as ? ?grammar guidelines.” My goal is to help you make the best choice for your... By all means, follow your teachers’ instructions and give them what they want But just know that these specific numbers are not connected to what English grammar requires The English language doesn’t care how many sentences you use Your teachers tell you how many sentences to use per paragraph because